Famous International Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous International poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous international poems. These examples illustrate what a famous international poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Sane Revolution

...can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.

Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour.
Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.


Babi Yar

...hout,
 "Beat the Yids. Save Russia!" 
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother. 
0 my Russian people!
 I know 
 you 
are international to the core. 
But those with unclean hands 
have often made a jingle of your purest name. 
I know the goodness of my land. 
How vile these anti-Semites-
 without a qualm 
they pompously called themselves 
the Union of the Russian People! 
I seem to be
 Anne Frank 
transparent 
 as a branch in April. 
And I love.
 And have no need of phrases. 
M...Read more of this...
by Yevtushenko, Yevgeny

Cosmopolitan Greetings

...To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates
 & International Bards 1986

Stand up against governments, against God.

Stay irresponsible.

Say only what we know & imagine.

Absolutes are coercion.

Change is absolute.

Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.

Observe what's vivid.

Notice what you notice.

Catch yourself thinking.

Vividness is self-selecting.

If we don't show anyone, we're free to w...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Dream Song 31: Henry Hankovitch con guítar

...an Egyptian black
& flickt a zippo.
Henry & Phoebe happy as cockroaches
in the world-kitchen woofed, with all away.
The International flame, like despair, rose
or like the foolish Paks or Sudanese

Henry Hankovitch, con guítar,
did a praying mantis pray
who even more obviously than the increasingly fanatical Americans
cannot govern themselves. Swedes don't exist,
Scandanavians in general do not exist,
take it from there....Read more of this...
by Berryman, John

Footnote To Howl

...bul! 
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the 
 clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy 
 the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch! 
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the 
 locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina- 
 tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the 
 abyss! 
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! 
 bodies! suffering! magnanimity! 
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent 
 kindness of...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen


Galahad Knight Who Perished

...A POEM DEDICATED TO ALL CRUSADERS AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL AND INTERSTATE TRAFFIC IN YOUNG GIRLS


Galahad . . . soldier that perished . . . ages ago,
Our hearts are breaking with shame, our tears overflow.
Galahad . . . knight who perished . . . awaken again,
Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men.
Soldiers fantastic, we pray to the star of the sea,
We pray to the mother of God that the bound...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel

Late Light

...and those houses and all 
they contain live that day 
in the sight of heaven. 

II 

In the blue, winking light 
of the International Institute 
of Social Revolution 
I fell asleep one afternoon 
over a book of memoirs 
of a Spanish priest who'd 
served his own private faith 
in a long forgotten war. 
An Anarchist and a Catholic, 
his remembrances moved 
inexplicably from Castilian 
to Catalan, a language I 
couldn't follow. That dust, 
fine and gray, peculiar 
to libraries, ...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Lines in Praise of Mr. J. Graham Henderson Hawick

...Because his Tweed cloth is the best I ever did see,
In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-three. 

At the International Exhibition, and the Isle of Man Exhibition,
He got a gold medal from each, in recognition
Of his Scotch Tweeds, so good and grand,
Which cannot be surpassed in fair Scotland. 

Therefore, good people, his goods are really grand,
And manufactured at Weensforth Mill, Hawick, Scotland;
Where there's always plenty of Tweeds on hand,
For the ready c...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

Mothers Day Proclamation

...eriod consistent with its objects, 
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, 
The amicable settlement of international questions, 
The great and general interests of peace....Read more of this...
by Howe, Julia Ward

Myfanwy

...im?

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.

Trace me your wheel-tracks, you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue, back to the pottingshed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.

Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham's Hans A...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John

Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America

...re everybody who isn't a Mormon

goes when they die. All Catholics, Buddhists, Moslems,

Jews, Baptists, Methodists and International Jewel Thieves.

Everybody who isn't a Mormon goes to the Spirit Slammer.

 The sign said 1 1/2 miles. The path was easy to follow,

then it just stopped. We lost it near a creek. I looked all

around. I looked on both sides of the creek, but the path had

just vanished.

 Could be the fact that we were still alive had something

to do with it. ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Scab Maids On Speed

...nd caught up on the sleep we'd missed from being up all night speeding.


When we got fired, we became waitresses at an International House of Pancakes.


We were much happier there....Read more of this...
by Estep, Maggie

September 1, 1939

...Competitive excuse:But who can live for longIn an euphoric dream;Out of the mirror they stare,Imperialism's faceAnd the international wrong. Faces along the barCling to their average day:The lights must never go out,The music must always play,All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are,Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trashImportant Persons ...Read more of this...
by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)

The New Hieroglyphics

...r circle shouldering two arrows is macho.

All peoples are at times cat in water with this language
but it does promote international bird on shoulder.
This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel....Read more of this...
by Murray, Les

The Sins of Kalamazoo

...e map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
“Lookin’ for a quiet game?”

The loafer lagged along and asked,
“Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

The Song of Education

...to see; 
But mother is happy, for mother is free. 
For mother is dancing up forty-eight floors, 
For love of the Leeds International Stores, 
And the flame of that faith might perhaps have grown cold, 
With the care of a baby of seven weeks old. 

For mother is happy in greasing a wheel 
For somebody else, who is cornering Steel; 
And though our one meeting was not very long, 
She took the occasion to sing me this song: 
"O, hush thee, my baby, the time will soon come 
When ...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The World State

...love Humanity, 
 With love so pure and pringlish, 
And how I hate the horrid French, 
 Who never will be English! 

The International Idea, 
 The largest and the clearest, 
Is welding all the nations now, 
 Except the one that's nearest. 

This compromise has long been known, 
 This scheme of partial pardons, 
In ethical societies 
 And small suburban gardens— 

The villas and the chapels where 
 I learned with little labour 
The way to love my fellow-man 
 And hate my next-d...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

When Golda Meir was in Africa

...gent, pompous,
Cowardly and treacherous-a great disappointment
To Israel, of course, and really rather
Ridiculous in international affairs
But, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
And good taste. ...Read more of this...
by Walker, Alice

Who Runs America?

...ezuela Mexico 
Oil that turns General Motors 

revs up Ford 
lights up General Electric, oil that crackles 

thru International Business Machine computers, 

charges dynamos for ITT 
sparks Western 
Electric 

runs thru Amer Telephone & Telegraph wires 

Oil that flows thru Exxon New Jersey hoses, 
rings in Mobil gas tank cranks, rumbles 

Chrysler engines 

shoots thru Texaco pipelines 

blackens ocean from broken Gulf tankers 
spills onto Santa Barbara...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

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